Certain European countries have recently reversed anti-corruption measures or started reforms that may breach international anti-corruption standards, according to the latest annual report from Council of Europe’s 49-member Group of States against Corruption (GRECO).
The Council of Europe (CoE) is thus initiating proceedings against Serbia, Belgium, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Turkey.
The reason is their “overall unsatisfactory” implementation of recommendations for preventing corruption among parliamentarians, judges and prosecutors.
Non-compliance procedure is also underway for Belarus and Switzerland, for which an assessment has already been made focusing on the demands that corruption cases be treated as crime, and that there must be an insight into “political financing” and a general legal framework for preventing corruption.
In a statement, the CoE said that “new legislative initiatives in certain European countries in 2017 reversed reforms previously undertaken to strengthen the prevention of corruption or started reforms that may result in breaches of the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption standards.”
Although there was overall progress in introducing new measures to fight corruption in respect of MPs, judges and prosecutors, their practical implementation remained slower than desirable, the statement said.
The GRECO report also “acknowledges the essential role played by journalists to fight corruption and pays tribute to Daphne Caruana Galizia,” adding thather murder “revealed once again the need to protect journalists who investigate corruption and to bring the perpetrators of crimes against them to justice.”
The report concludes that, by 31 December 2017, the states evaluated had not implemented almost one third of GRECO’s recommendations issued in respect of MPs (30%), whilst they had only partially implemented 44.4%. They had only fully implemented one out four (25.4%). These recommendations concerned mainly asset reporting, restrictions on outside business activities, transparency of interactions with lobbyists and the management of conflicts of interest.
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2017 was “a dark year for anti-corruption” says Council of Europe in its latest report have 440 words, post on www.neweurope.eu at May 3, 2018. This is cached page on VietNam Breaking News. If you want remove this page, please contact us.
